


The Artist and the Dance Teacher

by nagi_schwarz



Category: ASTRO (Band), Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crack, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24374440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Stargate Command's MajorEvan Lorne, artistwalks into a baris abandoned by Sheppard and McKay in an unlikely cowboy bar in Itaeown and meets...Astro's RockyPark Minhyuk, a children's dance teacher
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 22
Collections: A Ficathon Goes Into A Bar





	The Artist and the Dance Teacher

Evan stepped out of the restroom and craned his neck.

The table he’d been sharing with Sheppard and McKay was deserted, and several young women in bright checkered flannel shirts, denim short shorts, and pink leopard print cowboy hats had taken their spot.

“No way,” Evan said under his breath. Sure, Sheppard and McKay had just barely figured out, after five years of hideously blatant unresolved sexual tension, that they were, in fact, in love with each other, but had they really ducked away to make out again? Evan, as the only one of the three of them who spoke any decent Korean - on account of his having been stationed at Osan AFB early in his career, and also his addiction to Nurse Marie Ko’s historical dramas that began when he was on bed rest after breaking his leg when Michael’s base exploded - was indispensable to surviving their trip to Seoul, but the other two kept  _ leaving _ him.

Evan eyed their former table once more, but even their jackets were gone. He patted himself down reflexively. He still had his phone and wallet, so that was something. Although if those two had had the foresight to take their jackets, then had they outright abandoned him and gone back to the hotel? Sheppard was good at urban orienteering; he’d be able to get back even without a map or trying to foist his non-existent Korean on an innocent cabbie. (McKay had downloaded the latest and greatest language translation apps for his phone, including one that could translate voices, but he’d insisted he didn’t need it, on account of his having memorized a Korean tourist phrasebook on the flight over from Colorado Springs.)

Evan forced himself to take several deep breaths while he scanned his surroundings some more. Even though Korea boasted a long and rich cultural history and fantastic cuisine, Sheppard had somehow found them the only cowboy bar in the whole of Seoul, smack dab in the trendy nightlife spot that was Itaewon, and for an hour Evan had suffered through sipping on not-quite-right cheap PBR and listening to endless Johnny Cash. 

McKay, ever since he’d learned that Sheppard had had a pony as a kid and was an accomplished equestrian, had been very charmed at the notion of Sheppard in denim and suede and wearing a cowboy hat and found him an outfit especially for the occasion.

Since this trip was a diplomatic one, for extensive discussions with the South Korean representative to the IOA, Evan hadn’t thought to do much more than pack comfortable clothes for travel, his uniforms for official business, and nicer clothes for sightseeing since he knew, from Nurse Marie and some of the South Korean Marines stationed on Atlantis, that Korean street wear was several steps above American casual street wear. Even though he was wearing a nice button down shirt and jeans and sensible shoes, he felt horribly under-dressed and out of place. 

He smoothed down his shirt reflexively, then craned his neck some more. Compared to the locals, John was extra tall. He should have been easy to see, what with that ridiculous straw cowboy hat McKay had found for him at a street vendor on the way to the bar. 

After much impolite staring and being buffeted by locals who had a different sense of personal space, Evan spotted John’s hat and started toward it. He did his best to veer around the crowd that was gathered in the center of the bar. People were moving tables and chairs. Was a big group coming in? This bar boasted “an authentic casual American experience”, and the wait staff spoke decent English, but rearranging tables willy-nilly wasn’t necessarily an American thing. 

Was it? 

Evan had been on Atlantis so long that he was Atlantean more than anything, was American by the shoulder patch on his uniform and his military affiliation and training but little else. 

The cowboy hat started to move  _ away _ from Evan, and he cursed in Satedan and tried to move faster. 

“Hey, Sheppard!”

Only a blast of music drowned out his voice, boisterous country music, all see-sawing fiddles and wailing harmonicas and twanging guitars and banjos. 

The crowd in the center of the floor surged into motion, and Evan tried to dodge several laughing girls. They headed straight for him, so he shuffled backward to avoid crashing into them, but then people behind him started toward him in a random pincer maneuver, and he stumbled away from them. Maybe it was Evan’s imagination, but the entire crowd seemed to be shifting around him, like it was trying to keep him trapped. He stretched up on his toes and searched for Sheppard some more, or maybe even McKay’s slightly unruly pale hair, but then he banged into someone and tripped.

Hands on his arms steadied him.

“I’m sorry,” Evan said in Korean, in the politest form he knew (he’d only ever learned the politest forms, because better safe than sorry).

The boy who’d saved him inclined his head and said, “It’s okay,” in English. Then he tugged Evan gently, and said, “Left.”

Evan managed to regain his balance, and he shuffled along helplessly as the boy towed him left, then right, then back, then forward.

“Count,” the boy said, his English accented as he counted to eight over and over again, and - 

What the hell.

Line dancing. Everyone was line dancing.

And this kind soul was trying to help Evan dance.

Evan liked to think he was a self-aware person. Having an honest, objective assessment of his own skills was crucial to survival in the field and also to running a base efficiently. If there was something he couldn’t do well, he’d find someone who could, because getting things done well was far more important than his ego. 

Evan was a fine tactician, a sharp marksman, a chef par excellence, and a skilled artist.

Evan was a  _ terrible _ dancer.

“Front, two three four, back, two three four,” the boy said helpfully.

Compared to everyone else who was sporting cowboy boots and giant belt buckles and a distressing amount of suede fringe, his clothing was tame - blue jeans, a blue-and-black checkered flannel shirt unbuttoned over a gray t-shirt, soft-soled sneakers. He was about Evan’s height, but Evan couldn’t be quite sure how old he was. The drinking age in Korea was nineteen - twenty, by local age reckoning - but the boy could have been anywhere from nineteen to twenty-nine.

Evan did his best to follow along. The boy moved through the steps easily, confidently.

“Uh - you do this often? I mean, sorry, that sounds like a pick-up line, I swear I’m not a creep.”

The boy blinked at him, puzzled.

During Evan’s days at Osan, he’d gotten really good at sweet-talking the ahjummas at the fresh market near the base to give him good deals, mostly by using his baby-blue eyes and dimples and very basic but very respectful phrases to ask about prices and tell them what he was cooking. He’d learned a lot of random vocabulary from watching Marie’s dubiously-subtitled K-dramas, but none of it had really involved much in the way of hanging out at a bar, since they were all set in a historical era where people still wrote on scrolls with paintbrushes and bowed to a king.

Still, Evan could stitch together Korean in a pinch. “You dance often?” he offered in careful Korean.

The boy, who wore an expression of intense concentration despite the ease with which he danced, nodded, responded in the same language. “I’m a dancer.”

Well, that explained a lot - his slender build, his lightness of foot.

The boy glanced at Evan. “You speak Korean?” His accent was - familiar, different from most of what Evan had heard when they’d first landed in Seoul. 

“A little. You speak English?”

“A little,” the boy said, in English. He had good pronunciation, but was obviously hesitant.

The song ended, much to Evan’s relief, and the other dancers cheered and applauded. The boy applauded politely and stepped off the makeshift dance floor, but plenty of people stayed on it as another song started up. 

Evan hurried off of the dance floor as well, lest he cause an innocent person injury with his two left feet.

“Well,” he said to the boy, “thank you for helping me dance. You’re a good teacher.”

The boy’s eyes widened, and he shook his head. “No, no, no teacher. Me - this dance - never. Before.”

He’d never done this kind of dancing before.

Evan wasn’t unaccustomed to feeling jealous of other people, because he was surrounded by geniuses. As an artist, he shouldn’t have been surprised that there were dance geniuses. He offered, in Korean, “Your first time, you did very good.”

The boy blushed and bowed slightly. “Thank you.” He added, in English, “Too nice.”

Right. Bowing. Evan had taken a while to break the habit after he left Osan, and he was having a hard time getting back into it now that he was in Seoul. He bowed back a little. Then he checked the crowd. Sheppard’s straw cowboy hat was nowhere to be seen. Evan glanced at his watch. He’d give it half an hour, and if Sheppard hadn’t reappeared by then, Evan would institute a little solo SAR. Until then…

Evan said to the boy, “Hey, Teacher, let me buy you a drink. To say thank you.” He spoke carefully and clearly in English, but not too slowly, because that was just condescending. He also hoped he wasn’t contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

“Ah - thank you,” the boy said. He followed Evan over to the bar.

Since Evan didn’t want to get crazy smashed in case he really did have to do SAR to find Sheppard and McKay, he perched on a barstool and asked for a coke. He asked the boy, in Korean, “What do you want?”

“Ah - cider,” the boy said, hopping up onto the barstool beside him.

The bartender looked unimpressed but served up a - club soda? No, Sprite or Seven-Up or whatever the local equivalent was. The boy turned away from Evan while he drank, which was considered polite by a young person in the presence of elders, and Evan felt terribly old.

In Korean, Evan said, “It’s fine - you can drink comfortably in front of me.” That was a phrase he’d learned early on during his assignment at Osan. He added,  _ “Seonsaengnim.” _

The boy blinked and burst into startled laughter, shook his head vehemently. “No, no, no, not  _ seonsaengnim _ .”

“Well, you’re talented enough to be one,” Evan said in English. Then he bowed slightly and recited one of the first Korean phrases he’d ever learned. “I’m Evan Lorne.” He had to deliberately leave off his rank, especially since he wasn’t a little butterbar lieutenant anymore.

The boy bowed back and said, “Nice to meet you, Evan-ssi. I’m Astro - ah, no, that’s for work, I’m not working now. I’m Park Minhyuk.” He looked a little flustered.

The confusion was understandable. The boy was a dancer, and he was dancing, so maybe this felt a bit work-like. 

Evan offered the boy a smile. “Nice to meet you, Park Minhyuk. How old are you?” Evan remembered being jarred at how that was such a common thing to ask early in a conversation in Korea, even as between women.

“Twenty-one,” Minhyuk said, and while Evan was glad he hadn’t almost contributed to the delinquency of a minor - because that would look great to the local IOA rep - he also felt even older. Minhyuk was the same age as the greenie Marines sent to Atlantis on the regular.

“Ah. I’m - definitely older than that,” Evan said in English.

Minhyuk nodded and took another sip of his soda, but at least this time he didn’t turn away.

Evan said, “What kind of dancer are you?” If this was Minhyuk’s first time doing line dancing, he probably had some other kind of style he preferred.

Minhyuk said, “I’m an  _ aideul _ dancer.”

Evan was confused.  _ Ai _ meant children and  _ deul _ was the article that made a noun plural, so...oh. He taught dance to children. That explained his endless patience with Evan’s terrible fumbling. “That’s very noble,” Evan said in English, because he didn’t know the word in Korean. 

Minhyuk looked pleased. “Not many men think so,” he said in Korean.

Evan said, “Your accent - I’ve heard it before. Are you from the south?”

Minhyuk lit up. “I’m from Jinju-do. Have you been there?”

“I lived in Busan for a while,” Evan said.

“Oh. Busan is nice. Pretty. I like the ocean.” Minhyuk sipped at his drink some more.

Evan said, “Do you go dancing alone, often?” And oh dear, that had veered too close to pick-up territory.

Thankfully Minhyuk didn’t seem to notice and shook his head. “My friends. They said to come. But - they’re very very late.”

“I came with friends but they got lost.” Evan nodded.

Minhyuk sighed. “My friends - they are very slow. So slow. Turtles.” And he laughed, as if at an inside joke.

Evan finished his drink and set it aside. “Well, Park Seonsaengnim, how about another round of line dancing?”

“Yes!” Minhyuk drained the last of his soda, set the glass on the bar, and hopped to his feet.

Evan winced at how his knees and hips creaked when he rose, but he followed Minhyuk over to the dance floor anyway. The current song was about halfway done, but Minhyuk was watching the dancers intently, face slack but gaze laser-focused.

Evan studied Minhyuk. As an artist, he was always on the lookout for interesting faces, and Minhyuk was interesting all right. Evan wasn’t sure he’d go so far as to call the boy handsome, but he wasn’t ugly by any stretch of the imagination. Minhyuk’s brow was heavy, which did make him look a little severe, but he had sharp cheekbones. His eyes were dark, dark, dark, and probably contributed to the air of intensity he carried with him. Then he grinned, bright with realization, and his entire face transformed. He was adorable, and he even had little dimples. When he smiled like that, he looked even younger.

After two iterations of the dance, Minhyuk slid into place at the end of one of the lines and danced along without missing a beat.

_ “Daebak,” _ Evan said, because he really couldn’t think of anything else.

Minhyuk looked up at him and beckoned. “Come! Dance!”

“You’re gonna regret saying that,” Evan said in English, but he plopped himself into place beside Minhyuk and submitted himself to drifting along with the human current.

Minhyuk was endlessly patient, counting for Evan, telling him the directions, when to jump, when to turn, but Evan really was hopeless, and when the song ended with Evan nearly knocking Minhyuk over, Minhyuk laughed behind his hand. He apologized the entire time, but Evan waved him off.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I know I’m bad,” Evan said.

Another song started, and the dancers applauded and cheered. 

“Again?” Minhyuk asked. 

Evan scanned his surroundings and checked his phone. Still no sign of Sheppard and McKay. Maybe if he made himself visible on the dancefloor they’d come find him. 

“Sure,” Evan said. 

Minhyuk grinned. “Come on.”

Evan shuffled into place beside Minhyuk and focused on trying to keep time and moving in the same direction as everyone else, even if all he was doing was a basic march. Minhyuk picked up the steps quickly, and he even started to add his own flair, hooking his thumbs in his pockets and accenting the moves with his shoulders. By the end of the dance, Evan hadn’t bumped into anyone or stepped on anyone, and even though he’d been counting silently in his head the entire time, he felt pretty good about himself. 

Minhyuk clapped him on the shoulder and flashed him an  _ okay _ sign. 

“Thanks! Drinks?” Evan asked. 

Minhyuk nodded. 

They both opted for water and settled onto bar stools, watched the dance floor as they sipped.

“How long have you been dancing?” Evan asked. 

“Since I was four years old,” Minhyuk said. 

“So your whole life.” 

Minhyuk nodded. “What about you?”

“Haha, no. No dancing. I draw.” Evan made a scribbling motion with one hand. “That’s what I’ve done my whole life.”

Minhyuk’s eyes lit up. He cast about, found a bar napkin and a pen, and pushed them toward Evan. 

“Let me see?  _ Seonsaengnim.” _

Evan laughed, startled at the honorific, but he said, in English, “All right. Turnabout is fair play.”

Minhyuk cocked his head, puzzled. 

Evan knew basically zero Korean idioms. “Oh - you dance with me, it’s fair I draw for you.”

“Ah. Turn - turn a -” Minhyuk hesitated, frowning. 

Evan repeated it for him, carefully, and after several tries Minhyuk got it. 

Evan offered him an okay sign, and he set to sketching. It wouldn’t be his best work by any stretch of the imagination, but it would be identifiably Minhyuk when he was done. Minhyuk rested his chin in his hand and watched. 

When Evan was finished, he wrote the date in the corner and signed it even though it wasn’t really worth keeping, and he slid it across the bar to Minhyuk for his inspection. Minhyuk lifted it gingerly, studied it with a solemn expression.

Then he burst into a bright smile. “It’s me!”

“I did my best, but it was fast. If I had more time, it would be better,” Evan said.

Minhyuk reached into his pocket, found his wallet, eased the napkin into it carefully, then tucked his wallet away. “More dancing?”

Evan nodded. “More dancing.”

They finished their water and headed back out to the dance floor. Minhyuk continued to be a patient teacher, telling Evan which foot he should be on, when to cross, when to jump - or hop - and when to turn. Evan got tangled up in his own legs a couple of times, and he sacrificed rhythm for dance steps more than once, but he and Minhyuk both made it out uninjured, and he was pretty pleased with himself. Minhyuk applauded him, beaming.

More than one person in the club, man and woman alike, had noticed Minhyuk’s dancing, his casual confidence in the way he embodied the cowboy swagger while he moved, but Minhyuk didn’t seem to notice them. 

“You want me to take a video?” Minhyuk asked, miming holding a phone.

“Oh, stars, no,” Evan said. “Please, no one should remember my dancing.”

“Stars?” Minhyuk echoed, and Evan winced, because that was not a common English idiom, was Atlantean through and through.

Before Evan had to find a way to explain away his verbal gaffe, loud cheers rose up, and the crowd on the dance floor turned into a circle on the edges of the dance floor, and Minhyuk and Evan were swept back toward the bar.

Up to this point, Evan had been stumbling along to country classics like Sweet Home Alabama and I’ve Got Friends in Low Places and Ring of Fire. The music that filled the bar was unlike anything Evan had heard before - bright, bouncy, full of girl’s voices, electronic sounds layered like chaos but synchronized impossibly.

A few girls stepped into the middle of the circle and struck poses.

Minhyuk’s gaze went distant as he listened to the song, but then he lit up when he recognized it.

“What’s going on?” Evan asked.

“Random play dance,” Minhyuk said. “You know the dance, you go dance.”

Evan plopped himself down on the nearest bar stool. “I know zero dances.”

“This is Cowboy by f(x)-sunbaenim,” Minhyuk said.

Evan frowned, confused.  _ Sunbaenim _ was the respectful term for one’s seniors, like people who had seniority over someone at a school or a company. Perhaps Evan had mis-heard?

Only Minhyuk darted through the crowd and planted himself on the dance floor beside the girls, and - 

Well.

Minhyuk who could strut and swagger and embody cowboy bravado was also a Minhyuk who could beam and shimmy his shoulders and shake his hips and embody a perky teenage girl, or something like it. Bafflingly, the song was in Japanese, not Korean, but people were clapping and cheering along to the impromptu performance.

The song and dance must have been very popular, for so many random people to know it. The song did have the words  _ cowboy _ and  _ rodeo _ and possibly  _ giddy on up _ sprinkled through it in English, and it had kind of a country sound, and maybe that back-and-forth did look a bit like a line dance, so it made sense that even though it wasn’t strictly country it would get played at this bar.

If Minhyuk had never been to this bar before, how did he know the dance?

Well, if he taught kids, he probably had a lot of little girl students, so being able to teach them some cute dances was probably a job requirement.

After all the dancing they’d done, Minhyuk’s continued energy was impressive - and also reminded Evan, once again, that he wasn’t as young as he used to be. Still, he was young enough and fit enough for a gate team.

When the song ended, there was brief cheering and applause as the dancers scattered back to the edges of the crowd. Minhyuk bounded back to stand beside Evan, but he was bouncing on the balls of his feet, anticipating the next song.

Which was a mish-mash of speed metal guitars, pop girl vocals, and a techno beat. Evan looked around, confused, searching for the source of the music, convinced multiple songs were playing at once, but sure enough several people bounded out into the middle of the dance floor and set about dancing. Evan was confused about how any part of this song could be construed as country and western music, although half way through the chorus there were some lasso-like dance moves.

“Do you know this song?” Evan asked Minhyuk.

He shook his head, looking very puzzled. 

The song ended, and Minhyuk perked up again. Whatever came on next, he definitely recognized, and he bounced out onto the dance floor. All the other dancers were girls. Evan wondered if Minhyuk felt weird, but then he was beaming and acting cute, and, well, he was a dancer, so maybe it wasn’t too weird for him.

Minhyuk sat the next song out, looking puzzled again.

Evan ordered him a glass of water, slid it across the bar to him. Minhyuk thanked him and drained it in a couple of swallows. 

“I’m getting tired just watching you,” Evan said, and Minhyuk shrugged.

“I’m a professional,” he said, and that was fair.

Minhyuk danced the last two songs, and when the last song ended, a DJ - Evan couldn’t figure out where the DJ was speaking from - announced the end of the game, and the winner, a woman who was the only one who’d danced to all five songs. Her prize was a free drink, a giant, brightly-colored fruity concoction in a martini glass decorated with umbrellas and flowers and paper fruit. Her friends crowded around her and cheered, posed for pictures, and then encouraged her to down the drink in  _ one shot! One shot! One shot! _

Other people took up the chant. While Evan spent quality time with plenty of Marines and could hold his liquor like a good serviceman should, he had never been one for binge drinking, and he winced at how fast the woman took it down, but once the glass was empty her friends cheered more. Minhyuk looked alarmed as well, but then another song - bright, techno, Euro-sounding - started up, and everyone cheered and piled back onto the dance floor.

“You know this song?” Minhyuk asked.

“Me?” Evan echoed, but then he realized the song was in English.

Above the techno beat there were sawing fiddles, and it sounded plenty country. If country had gotten drunk on a synthesizer.

“No,” Evan said. “This isn’t really my style.”

Nothing about this bar was Evan’s style. 

The crowd on the dance floor resolved themselves into an organized dance quickly. There was hopping back and forth. There was whirling in a giant circle like a human catherine wheel.

Minhyuk, who’d recovered from his impromptu dance competition, straightened up and shook his limbs out like a Marine getting ready to throw down on the sparring mats with Ronon. “Let’s dance!”

He dragged Evan into the edges of the crowd and began to dance along. If Evan had thought the other line dances were hard, this was impossible. During the singing, it seemed straightforward enough, back and forth, some criss-crossing that finally didn’t make him stumble. But then during the fiddle section, it was some kind of reel. Evan was totally unprepared for when Minhyuk grabbed his hands and pulled him in and danced  _ with  _ him.

“Sorry in advance!” Evan called over the music in English, but Minhyuk looked delighted, so Evan went with it as best as he could and managed not to step on Minhyuk’s feet.

There were plenty of other dancers in the crowd who had no partners, and plenty of ladies - and even a few gentlemen - had been admiring Minhyuk’s dancing skill all night, would have been far better partners, but Minhyuk had chosen Evan, and Evan was rolling with the punches. He’d done weirder things for offworld trading ceremonies.

Only when the song ended and everyone was cheering and clapping, Sheppard and McKay were standing on the edges of the dance floor, gaping at him.

_ “Major?” _ McKay demanded.

Evan was breathing very, very hard, embarrassingly so. “Doc. Sir. Nice of you to return.”

Minhyuk paused beside him. “Everything okay?” he asked, in Korean.

Evan nodded. “Yes. These are my friends. Ah - Sheppard, McKay, this is Park Minhyuk. He’s been, uh, my dance teacher for the evening. Minhyuk-ssi, this is John Sheppard and Rodney McKay, my friends.”

Minhyuk bowed politely and smiled. “Hello, nice to meet you,” he said in careful English.

“I thought you couldn’t dance and that’s why you never dance for - diplomatic purposes.” Sheppard narrowed his eyes.

Evan fanned himself with the collar of his shirt. “Did you see me out there and would you really want me engaging in trade negotiations on behalf of the base?”

“I’d be hard-pressed to call that dancing,” McKay said.

Minhyuk tapped on Evan’s shoulder, and he was holding a glass of water.

“Oh, thank you!” Evan accepted it gratefully, drained it. “Where did you two go off to? I was about ready to institute SAR.”

Sheppard and McKay had the grace to look a little guilty before Sheppard said, “Seems like you were just fine on your own, making friends with the locals. Ready to head back to the hotel?”

“I was born ready,” Evan said. He turned to Minhyuk. “Will you be okay till your friends come? Maybe you should call them.”

Minhyuk looked confused, and Evan realized he had to switch back to Korean.

And then McKay said, “Rocky.”

“Like the Stallone movie?” Sheppard asked.

Only Minhyuk bowed to McKay and said, “Yes, I’m Astro’s Rocky, nice to meet you.”

Sheppard’s brow furrowed. “You know Evan’s dance teacher?”

McKay frowned. “What? No. You know how Madison is really into K-pop?”

“Uh...sure,” Sheppard said.

“Her favorite band is Astro. She made me promise if I came to South Korea and met anyone in Astro, I’d get a picture and an autograph,” McKay said. He patted himself down. “I need a pen. And something to write on.”

Minhyuk wore a politely blank expression, one Evan recognized as Teyla’s  _ be polite for the crazy aliens _ that she wore whenever things were looking to get chaotic offworld.

“I think you’re mistaken. He’s a dance teacher for children,” Evan said.

McKay paused in patting down Sheppard in search of a pen. “What? He told you that?”

Evan nodded. “Yeah.” He turned to Minhyuk. “What kind of dancer are you again?”

_ “Aideul _ dancer,” Minhyuk said.

Evan turned back to McKay. “See?  _ Aideul _ means children.”

McKay stared at him. “What? No, he’s saying  _ idol, _ like - like Mooby the Golden Calf. It’s the Korean word for a celebrity, basically.”

Evan turned back to Minhyuk. “I...what?”

Minhyuk pointed to himself. “I’m an idol. Dancer. Rapper. Singer.”

“Wrapper?” Sheppard echoed. “Like a gift-wrapper?”

McKay tossed his head impatiently. “No, like the guy who’s named after candy. Skittles or Smarties or -”

“Eminem?” Minhyuk offered helpfully. 

McKay snapped his fingers. “That’s the one.”

Sheppard eyed Minhyuk. “You don’t look like a rapper. Where’s your posse and your...girls disrespectfully referred to as gardening implements?”

“Ah - say again?” Minhyuk looked politely confused. 

Evan said, a little defensively, “He’s off the clock. He’s here for some drinks with friends, and his friends also abandoned him.”

McKay headed over to the bar to ask for a pen and paper.

Minhyuk fished his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it, tapped at it rapidly. Then he held it out for Sheppard and Evan to see. It was a video of some kind of soda shop that was named, dubiously, D.Store and had a rainbow sign. All of the clerks at the store were also dancing, and there were lots of colored lights.

Minhyuk tapped the side of the phone and said, “My team,” in English.

Evan peered closer at the video, counted six boys. All of them looked like teenagers, but then they were probably wearing makeup so they looked good on camera - and had perfectly clear complexions.

Sheppard said, “I feel like we’re going to get thrown in prison because these kids are jailbait. Is this some kind of music video?”

Minhyuk nodded vigorously. He pointed to the screen and said, “Me,” but the scene changed so quickly that it was hard to tell which of the boys he meant, because three of them had dark hair and three of them had light hair and they kept moving and switching places. It was kind of dizzying to watch, probably because Evan couldn’t hear the song the video was set to, and the scene cuts seemed random and sudden.

McKay returned, brandishing a pen and paper. He offered them to Minhyuk. “Sign, please?”

“Rodney,” Sheppard protested, but Minhyuk bobbed his head politely and accepted the pen and paper politely.

“What’s your name?” Minhyuk asked.

“Ah - it’s for my niece, Madison,” McKay said. He spelled it, and Minhyuk wrote it carefully, and then a message in Korean - Evan couldn’t read Korean well at all, let alone handwritten Korean - and drew a heart and smiley face and then signed something illegible with a very practiced flourish.

“Thank you,” McKay said. “Madison will be very pleased. She loves you all.”

Minhyuk bowed and said, “Thank you.”

“Could I get a picture of you? For Madison.” McKay fished his phone out of his pocket.

Evan sighed. “What? McKay, no, give him a break, he’s - he’s off duty right now.”

McKay hesitated, but Minhyuk offered a smile and gestured at McKay’s phone, and when McKay had his phone ready, Minhyuk posed, flashed a smile and a peace sign.

“So while Rodney and I were getting some fresh air, you were getting dance lessons from a celebrity and didn’t even know it,” Sheppard murmured.

Evan felt guilty, because he and Minhyuk had been having an all right time, a strange camaraderie forged in odd circumstances, and now it was gone.

“I guess,” he said.

“We’d better get back to the hotel so I can put this somewhere safe for Madison,” McKay said. He smirked at Sheppard. “Who’s going to be Madison’s favorite uncle again? That’s right. Uncle Mer.”

Evan bowed to Minhyuk. “Thank you so much - for dance lessons, and for - for my friend.”

Minhyuk smiled, and this time it was genuine. “No problem,” he said in English. And then, in Korean, “Thank you for the drawing.”

Evan smiled. “Any time.”

Before he could say more, five more boys materialized out of the crowd and pounced on Minhyuk. Finally, his friends had arrived.

Evan turned back to Sheppard and McKay. “Ready to go?”

McKay nodded. “Yeah. I’m tired.”

“I’m sure all that making out must have been exhausting,” Evan drawled.

“Not like that dancing,” Sheppard fired back.

“Do you want  _ me _ to leave  _ you _ this time? And see who gets back to the hotel first,” Evan said.

The three of them slipped out of the bar and headed for the sidewalk, found a taxi stand and waited patiently in line.

“Seriously, though,” Sheppard said. “I thought you couldn’t dance.”

“Maybe I can, with a patient enough teacher. But I think I’ll stick to drawing from here on out.”

McKay admired Minhyuk’s autograph. “I am going to be Madison’s favorite uncle  _ forever.” _

“Just wait,” Sheppard said. “I’ll get my title back. You won’t be the favorite for long.”

The next time Evan talked to Madison, he’d ask her some more about Astro. She’d probably be glad to tell him.

* * *

The next morning, McKay woke Evan by pounding on the door that separated their hotel rooms.

“What? What is it?” Evan scrambled for the radio that connected him to the  _ Hammond _ that was in orbit, in case they needed an emergency beaming.

“How the hell did you became  _ Favorite Uncle Evan?”  _ McKay shoved his phone under Evan’s nose.

Evan blinked. “What?”

Sheppard leaned in the doorway, looking highly amused.

McKay waggled his phone. “What is this?”

Evan peered at the screen. “It’s an Instagram post. What does that have to do with me? Social media isn’t a thing for us.”

“Isn’t that something you drew?” McKay demanded.

Evan peered again. “Oh - yeah. Last night. At the bar. I kinda traded a drawing for dance lessons. Why do you have a picture of it?”

“Because Madison’s beloved Rocky posted it on his Instagram feed and Madison recognized your signature in the corner.”

Evan had given her drawings before. “That’s...nice?”

“You’ve ruined me!” McKay cried.

“You’re being melodramatic,” Sheppard said. “Come back to bed and let the good major get some more rest.” He reached out and snagged McKay’s sleeve, towed him out of Evan’s room.

Evan watched the door close behind them and then stumbled back to his own bed.

Next time he was sending Teldy.

* * *

[ ](https://imgfly.me/i/XLt2Iv)

**Author's Note:**

> Why yes I totally fudged with the timelines in SGA (the TV show for which ended in 2009) versus, uh, real life for Astro (they debuted in 2016 and Rocky wasn't old enough to drink till 2018), but whatever. Fiction!
> 
> Also so much gratitude to Brumeier for her beta assistance! She's a great beta and an even better writer and friend.
> 
> Song references:  
> Cowboy by f(x)  
> Crazy Cowboy by Pritz  
> Cotton-Eye Joe (the bane of every school dance from middle school to law school, I kid you not)
> 
> Language notes:  
> 아이들, which is romanized as aideul, means "children"  
> 아이돌, which is romanized as aidol, is the loan word for "idol", i.e. a pop star  
> 선생님, which is romanized as seongsaengnim, means "teacher/instructor" and also might be like "professor"
> 
> The music video Minhyuk shows to John and Evan is [Baby](https://youtu.be/IwqEXtsvaDg), which is bright and adorable and Minhyuk is the one in the dark blue room with the boxing ring


End file.
